


HalBarry Teacher AU

by EmuChipmunk



Series: Marvel/DC Teacher AU [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:22:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmuChipmunk/pseuds/EmuChipmunk
Summary: Barry Allen, the honors chem teacher, and Hal Jordan, the physics teacher are really Going Through It with the mutual pining and some of the other teachers have had enOUGH of it.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Hal Jordan, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r/Wally West, Michael Carter/Ted Kord, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm, Reed Richards/Susan Storm (Fantastic Four), Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Series: Marvel/DC Teacher AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1476749
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	HalBarry Teacher AU

It’s not that Hal  doesn’t _want_ to ask Barry out. He practically asks him out every time they eat takeout at Hal’s apartment every other Wednesday that they’re not eating at Barry’s place. That’s what that is, right? Asking Barry out?

“When are you  _ actually _ gonna ask Barry out, my man,” Booster asked, spinning around in his desk chair and seemingly reading Hal’s mind. “I’ve only been here a few months and it’s painfully obvious you both wanna bang.” 

“Booster what the fu-” Hal was cut off by Booster’s laughter and loud assurance that he was just joking. Still, he couldn’t keep his face from turning red before sputtering out that he had to go pick a bonus question for his upcoming physics test for his AP class. Hal excused himself as graciously as he could with a tomato red face and walked down the hall, still able to hear Booster’s laughing and call for Ted, no doubt to tell the math teacher what just happened. 

_ I’ll do it soon, before summer break for sure this time _ , Hal thought to himself for the third year in a row. 

\--

A few nights later Hal and Barry were sitting on opposite ends of the beat up couch in Barry’s apartment. They ordered their usual from the Chinese place down the road and were settled in on their third episode of the original Star Trek series. Barry basically had it memorized at this point after Hal first made him watch it a few years ago, but Hal still watches him recite the lines out of the corner of his eye every time. A sudden ping from both of their phones startles them out of their Star Trek haze, and Hal picks up his phone as Barry leans over to see what the notification is. Hal swipes his phone open and sees Peter posted something on his instagram with the caption “ _ Get to it, detectives. _ ” 

“I...don’t get it.” Both of them were looking at Peter’s post, just a regular picture of him prepping for class, usually something that would be on his private account, not his more popular photography one. Barry gently took the phone from his hand to inspect the picture, zooming in and out a few times and twisting the phone. Hal watches his face as Barry focuses on the phone instead of the heart eyes being pointed at him. Barry smiles and scoots over on the couch to point to something on the screen. 

“There! Look at the socks in the corner.” Hal looks and...still doesn’t get it. Barry seems to read his mind ( _ people should  _ really _ stop doing that _ ) and rolls his eyes with a small grin. “Flame socks? Who’s the only person we know that wears those ugly things, Highball?” Hal pretends not to notice how his chest warms up at the sound of Barry using his nickname. 

“Johnny Storm, obviously. But, like, why is that the important part here?”

“Jeez, Hal, do I have to explain everything?” Barry shows Hal the phone again while laughing a little bit, showing him the comments. “Pete’s telling the kids who he’s married to. Remember, the talk of the school for  _ weeks _ now? Good for them, I’m glad to see them being open about it.” 

“Yeah,” Hal says as he takes his phone back from Barry and taps out a quick comment, “ _ proud of u both for making it public _ ” before setting his phone back down and picking up his food again. “You wanna get back to the show? I think this one’s my favorite.” 

“You say that about every episode,” Barry laughs as he picks up his food again too and ignores the quick change in subject. He looks over to Hal, who seems a little zoned out as he pressed play on the episode. Barry doesn’t move back to his side of the couch from when he had scooted earlier, silently willing Hal to pick up what he was laying down so obviously right in front of him. 

_ This man is gonna be the death of me, I swear _ Barry thinks as he settles back in for the rest of the night. 

\--

Hal had been acting a little weird ever since last Wednesday night. Some of the students had caught on when he gave them the same bonus question from a few days ago on the physics quiz they had, and Booster and Ted had realized when he barely responded to his invite to their spring break cookout they were hosting in a few weeks. Booster pulled him aside after Hal finished making copies during their shared planning period and closed the classroom’s door while sitting down at one of the student desks. 

“Hey, buddy, is there something happening behind the scenes we should know about? A few of us are getting a little worried.” Booster waited for a response for a few seconds before adding on, “if it’s about the comment, man, I’m sorry it was just--”

“No, no, it wasn’t that,” Hal cut in, waving away the comment as he started organizing the copies he made for the next period’s lab. Booster stayed quiet, waiting for an explanation before Hal sighed. He glanced at the door and, satisfied with seeing it was still closed and no one was standing there, continued. “Did you see Pete’s instagram post last week? The one all his students went crazy for, with Johnny’s socks in the background?” 

Booster slowly nodded his head, his eyebrows scrunched up a little bit trying to understand what Hal was connecting this to. It’s not like Hal was homophobic or anything, his buddy is in  _ love _ love with Barry. 

“Nah, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it by the end of the week and be back to normal,” Hal said while checking the clock. Class was gonna start in a few minutes and a few minutes was  _ not _ long enough to unpack everything for Booster. Ted, maybe, but Booster definitely not. “Look, you have the cookout next weekend, right? I’ll tell you then.” 

Booster groaned, standing up from the plastic chair and pretending to feel faint. 

“Oh, Hal, you can’t  _ do _ that to me, you  _ know _ how I am with this sort of thing. What are we, teenagers?” 

Hal let out a little laugh as he went to push his friend out the door. And of course that’s when Barry walked past to get to his classroom a few doors down in the science hallway. Barry grinned at the sight of his friends messing around before class started, Booster still playing faint in Hal’s arms. Hal’s cheeks turned a light pink watching the chemistry teacher walk by, and Booster looked up just in time to see it.

“Ohhhhh,” he hummed quietly to himself as the pieces clicked together in his head. Booster stood up and started walking towards Ted’s classroom in the math hallway below. He left a confused Hal behind him, but he didn’t have a class next period either since he was only subbing for three periods that day. 

“Okay…? See ya later, Mr. Carter,” Hal yelled down the hall after his friend, bringing back the formalities as students started trickling into his classroom. 

\-- 

It wasn’t unusual to see Mr. Jordan or Mr. Allen in each other’s rooms, it was actually almost guaranteed that if you couldn’t find one of them, they’d be in the other’s classroom, but nevertheless it got slightly annoying when Mr. Jordan came in and distracted the chem teacher while they were doing a lab. Jessie had her hand raised for three full minutes, almost long enough to ruin the experiment they were doing, before deciding to take things into her own hands and walk over to her teacher. 

When she approached, she could hear the two of them talking about the movie they had watched last night.  _ That’s right,  _ she thought,  _ it’s Thursday, they watched a movie together last night.  _ It wasn’t too difficult to figure out the science teachers’s schedules if you paid attention. Every Wednesday Mr. Allen would excuse himself for a few minutes while the kids were working on corrections to go talk to Mr. Jordan about what movie they’d watch that night, and every Thursday Mr. Jordan would drop by halfway through class (he had a planning period) to talk about the movie. It was an unspoken rule that the students wouldn’t bring it up and they’d let the two teachers have their talk while they continued to work on the lab. 

This is where Jessie drew the line, though. She already had to sit through Mr. Storm and Mr. Parker flirting (what they all thought then was arguing) for months before finding out they were  _ married _ to each other. She wouldn’t have that happen again in the same school year. Walking right up to the two teachers, she patiently waited for a break in the conversation. 

“Mr. Parker, Matthew and I have a question about the lab, can you come help us? And also if you guys are together, will you just tell us already so we know you guys don’t hate each other, like half of us already had to put up with it with Parker and Storm, I don’t know if we can handle it again.” 

Mr. Allen paled a little bit as Mr. Jordan turned a little pink, quickly apologizing for interrupting class and speeding out of the room.  _ Oh, that’s not what I meant to do. _

“Uh, yeah Jessie, I’ll be right there,” the chem teacher said while looking in the direction of the door. He walked over to Jessie and Matthew’s table while Jessie sent an apologetic look the teacher’s way. He nodded the slightest bit before helping them with the solution and lab write up.

\--

“Oh come on, Barry, I’ve gone over this SO many times, Goose’s death should have never happened! At best it was a freak accident that had a million to one chance of happening, but they just wanted the death to look cool for the audience. Here, I’ll pull up the clip again.” 

Hal and Barry were sitting in the break room eating lunch with each other, arguing about the accuracy of Top Gun for what seemed like the billionth time. Barry rolled his eyes while grinning and watching Hal pull up the movie he had saved on his phone to break down Goose’s death scene frame by frame again. He can’t blame the guy for knowing his airplane movies, Hal was a pilot in the Air Force for almost a decade before having to step away after an injury and picking up teaching.

Remy LeBeau, the french teacher, gave a little wink to Barry as he walked past from the microwave, him and the rest of the teachers being well accustomed to their friend’s flirting techniques. When Hal found the clip he wanted, he scooted his chair closer to Barry’s and tilted the phone screen so they could both see, launching into an explanation of the canopy of the plain popping off. 

“Well Bar, I think I see your problem,” Hal said, pausing the clip again and willing his pulse to slow down a little bit. “I’m explaining all this physics shit and you’re too busy looking at  _ me  _ instead of the very important and tragic death of Goose!” 

“Sorry, it’s just--” Barry picks up his balled up napkin in his lunch box and goes to wipe at Hal’s face before thinking better of it and holding the napkin out to him instead. “--you have some ranch on your face from your chicken salad.” Hal’s cheeks turn a bit pink as he takes the napkin offered to him and wipes at his mouth. 

“Uh, thanks,” Hal responds as Barry keeps looking at his mouth. 

“And a bit there.” Barry points to the mirrored place on his own face and Hal gets the rest of the ranch off his face. 

“Anyways, uh,” Hal starts before going back into his Top Gun analysis. Barry looks up at the clock and locks eyes with Reed and Sue sitting a few tables away with a smug look on their face. He quickly flips them off, playing it off as him pushing up his glasses, and hears them laugh a little before returning back to their conversation. 

_ If that’s what it takes to see Hal get so excited, so be it,  _ Barry thinks as he tunes back into why Goose’s canopy would have never hit him like that, Hal setting his phone down to use his hands to explain. 

\--

It was finally spring break, and as excited as the students were to be out and travel for the week, all of the teachers were just as excited as the yearly Kord/Carter staff cookout. Almost all the teachers and their spouses came every year, bringing lots of food with them and lots of yard games to spread out in Ted’s gigantic yard. 

When Hal and Barry showed up (together, like they always do, “shut up Booster, it saves gas”) they dropped off their food at the designated table and started looking around. Barry had talked Hal out of bringing a whole meal himself, though Hal was used to cooking lots of his food for his family every time they visited for Hanukkah, so he had plenty of recipes under his belt. Barry excused himself to grab soda for himself and Hal. 

Hal saw Johnny and Booster hanging out further down the food table, and as he got closer he could hear their excited conversation. 

“Oh my god, Booster, you’re chicken mac and cheese is SO good, you wouldn’t beLIEVE how much the kids loved making it in class a few weeks ago.” Johnny was holding a bottle of coke and practically bouncing up and down raving about their friend’s signature dish that he always had to make multiple crock pots of and promise to send leftovers with people every year. 

“Mix lazy and poor college me with the palate of a toddler and that’s what you get, Storm,” Booster was grinning when he looked over and saw Hal walking up to them. “I’ll be right back, Johnny, help yourself to the food,” he excused himself as Johnny was already piling food onto his paper plate and calling Peter over to get food. 

“Ready to start talking, Jordan?” 

“Not really, but I said I would, didn’t I?” 

This isn’t the first time Hal’s been in Ted and Booster’s house, but every time he sees it, he's always struck by the fact that a house can be so huge yet so personal at the same time. It’s not the cold, minimalist mansion that you see millionaires and billionaires on tv have, it’s very warm, inviting, and full of personality. There are pictures of the happy couple and all their friends hanging all over their walls, papers spread out across every surface carried over from Ted’s other job of making tech prototypes (how he managers to do that  _ and _ teach high level math courses full time blows everyone’s mind sometimes) and there’s always snacks on the counter open to anyone that wants them. 

Hal looks around at the new pictures hung up since the last time he was there and grabs a granola bar from the counter as Booster pulls him into one of their guest rooms. 

“Jeez, man, you sure  _ you’re  _ not the one that wants to bang?” Hal jokes as Booster sprawls out on the bed (careful to keep his shoes off the fresh blankets) and he leans against the dresser with his granola bar. 

“Come on Hal, just spill. What’s been messing with you lately? You’ve been acting weird enough that even Bruce is picking up on it, and he has, like, a million kids to watch all the time.” Booster waits a second and prompts, “you were talking about Peter and Johnny’s post last week, weren’t you? What was that all about?”

“Well,” Hal sighs. “It made me realize that, like, I really like Barry and--” he holds up his hand to stop Booster from cutting with the obvious fact that everyone knows he likes Barry. “It just made me realize that maybe I need to ask him out. Like, for real this time. Because I wanna have what Johnny and Peter have and we’re close to it with our movie Wednesdays and eating lunch together almost every day and going to each other’s classrooms all the time but it’s not the same because we’re not  _ together _ together.” 

Booster sits up while Hal is talking and pulls his phone out of his pocket, sending a quick text before pocketing it again. 

“You know that Barry likes you, right? Please tell me you know this, man, you’re not that stupid.” Booster stands up and walks to be face to face with Hal and puts his hands on Hal’s cheeks, squishing them a little. “ _ Harold _ , do you understand this? You  _ gotta _ ask that man out, like,  _ yesterday. _ ” 

“Yeah, you might be right,” Hal responds, voice a little distorted by the fact that Booster was still squishing his cheeks. 

“Good. Now let’s sit down and talk about it a little more. I gotta know all the things you like about him, you know I’m a sucker for this shit.” 

\-- 

Meanwhile, out in the yard, Barry spins around in circles trying to figure out where Hal ran off to. He walks up to Ted and Diana talking about some historic event or something, who knows. 

“Hey, have you seen Hal? I said I’d only be gone a second to get us drinks.” As Barry’s explaining this, Ted looks down at his phone and sees a text from Booster:  _ Teddy hals finally doing it get barry. _ He grins and puts his phone away, sending a look to Diana to explain what’s going on. He mimes texting, signifying that he’ll update her later as she makes an excuse to go talk to someone else. 

“You know what, I haven’t, actually,” Ted says, looking around even though he knows exactly where Hal and his husband were. Some of the teachers had been planning this for months, the pining Hal and Barry were doing for literal years was getting to be too much for the rest of the teachers and they  _ had _ to get them together. “Hey, I actually wanted to ask you a few things about him, birthday present stuff, no big deal. Let’s go inside, it’s quieter in there.”

The two men walked inside and Ted led them to another one of the guest rooms on the other side of the house, positive that Hal wouldn’t know they were there. Before Ted could even bullshit some questions about Hal to get Barry to talk about him, Barry was rambling on about him. 

“You know, I thought for sure he would have asked me out by now, it’s not like I haven’t made it obvious. I mean, a few weeks ago during our Movie Wednesday I scooted so that I was practically shoulder to shoulder with him for the second half of our Star Trek marathon, earlier this week I damn near wiped his mouth for him and he caught me watching him instead of the clip of Goose that I’ve made him explain to me twelve times already just to see him get excited, I can’t believe--” 

“Wait wait wait,” Ted interjected, trying to hold back a sigh. “Why don’t you just ask him out then? Why are you waiting for him to do it?”

“Hal’s had some pretty messed up relationships in the past and I didn’t want to rush (“ _ rush,  _ Barry??”) into something, so I’m letting us go at his pace. But his pace is so  _ slow _ Ted!”

Ted rubbed his hands together and looked Barry in his eyes. “You know, what you’re doing for him is super admirable and just another sign that you two were meant to be together, but if you want to be together you might have to do it. He might not even know that’s what you both want, you know how he is.” 

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, I think I’ll wait a few more weeks for him and if he hasn’t done it by summer break I’ll step in and do it myself. I just want him to be comfortable with where we’re at, you know?” 

Ted gives Barry a soft smile before they agree to go find Hal. 

“Wait, Ted, didn’t you want to ask a question? About his birthday?” 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll figure something out.” 

\-- 

Everyone was back from spring break and back into the swing of things, including Hal and Barry’s Movie Wednesday that was put on hold for a week so they could both visit their families in different states. 

The night was winding down and Hal was scrolling through on instagram while Barry was taking a bathroom break before starting their last movie. 

“Why the hell is everyone on a date, it’s a Wednesday night,” he grumbled as he scrolled through post after post of his friends. Reed and Sue at a fundraiser dinner, Johnny, Peter, Dick, Kory, and Wally all at a bowling alley together on a double date, Selina and Bruce with the rest of the Wayne kids having a blast at the zoo. “I can do that too, you know, just have to ask him out first.” 

“What was that, Hal?” Barry was coming back from the bathroom, wiping his hands on his pants as he settled back in on his side of the couch. His back was against the arm of the couch and he stretched his legs out to be closer to Hal. Hal copied his example, twisting himself so he was facing Barry and stretched his legs out too. 

“Nothing, Bar. Hey, I was wondering--” Hal was cut off by Barry laughing at what was happening in the movie. 

“Oh my god, I always forget how stupid this movie is but Emma Roberts and Hayden Christensen are cute together.” They decided to watch  _ Little Italy _ tonight while scrolling through Barry’s streaming movies. It looked cheesy to Hal, but Barry loved it and claimed he’d defend it to his dying day so obviously Hal agreed to watch it. They both quieted down and watched the leads play soccer in the rain before Barry remembered that Hal was gonna say something.

“Sorry, what were you gonna say? I had to watch this soccer scene uninterrupted,” he laughed lightly while turning to face Hal again. 

“What? Oh, nothing, just...can you pass the rice?” Hal gestured toward the box of white rice and Barry handed it to him, giving him glances for the rest of the movie until Hal said he had to go home and grade some papers before school tomorrow. 

“See you tomorrow, Bar. Lunch?” 

“We always have lunch, Hal.”

“Yeah but just, like. Making sure.” 

Barry closed the door behind Hal as he rushed out, trying not to think about how weird he’s been acting for the past few weeks. 

\-- 

_ Oh God, what the hell am I gonna do _ , Hal thought as he shuffled around papers on his desk, desperately trying to find the rest of the tests he misplaced when he came into his classroom earlier that morning. Finals are coming up and the students had to have their tests back to go over as a class and study from, but Hal can’t find 8 of the tests he  _ knows _ he graded last night after he got home from Barry’s. Of course, he was pretty distracted when he got home, with social media being completely off limits with all his friends having dates, and the only things on TV being rom coms. Even his music was against him, only playing love songs or unrequited love songs no matter what playlist he put on shuffle. Maybe he just left those tests on his kitchen counter this morning, he’d have to have someone go to his house to get them, though, since he still had to prep for the other periods. 

Just then, Barry walked in, looking down at his phone and eating a pop tart. 

“Hey, do you know what this email from Peggy is about, I thought we went over this in the last staff meeting.” Barry’s sentence broke off near the end as he looked up and saw his friend in absolute chaos mode practically tearing up his desk trying to find something. He rushed over and put his hands on Hal’s shoulders to get him to calm down long enough to look at him. 

“Hal,  _ Hal,  _ what the hell’s going on? You look like you’re trying to rob yourself here.” Hal looked up and slumped into his desk chair. Barry sat down on Hal’s desk right in front of him and rubbed Hal’s shoulder, still trying to get him to calm down.

“I lost some of the kids tests and they need them to study from and I can’t find them and I know I graded them and--” Hal broke off mid sentence and looked at Barry in the eyes for the first time since he had walked in. “Go to dinner with me? On Friday?” 

Barry lost his words for a split second before breaking out in a loud laugh. Hal started to look panicked again, so Barry made sure to stop laughing long enough to say “oh my god,  _ that’s  _ how you decided to ask me, huh.” Sensing that it didn’t ease Hal’s anxiety at all, Barry stopped laughing to look his friend in the eyes. “Of course I’ll have dinner with you, dumbass, I’ve been waiting for this for years. Now how can I help you fix this test fiasco?” 

Hal had completely forgotten about his original point of panic in the span of time it took him to make the impulse decision to ask Barry on a date and start panicking for something else entirely, the thought that Barry was laughing at him misinterpreting years of signals from him. Hal lets out a sigh of relief and grabs his apartment keys off his desk, holding them out to Barry. 

“I need you to go to my place and check the counter for the tests. I would do it myself but I have to prep for AP next period.” Barry takes the keys from Hal and dashes out of the classroom, Hal yelling a hurried “thanks, Bar!” after him. 

_ Well that’s out of the way now,  _ he thinks, picking up his phone to text Booster before thinking better of it. He had a better idea anyway. 

\-- 

Friday night came and Hal was weirdly calm about the whole thing, although that may be due in part to the fact that he was worried that if he had another panic attack with Barry there, twice in one week, he might scare him off. Not that it was a huge concern, knowing each other for almost 5 years of working in the same school just a few doors away from each other they’d obviously seen some wild things from each other, but Hal didn’t want to take any chances. 

They agreed to meet in front of Barry’s building before walking to a restaurant closer to his side of town. It wasn’t fancy, neither of them felt comfortable in anything more than a sharp looking button up, but it was still a step up from the chinese food they got every Wednesday. 

The date itself went pretty smoothly, the only awkward part being Hal asking if he could hold Barry’s hand on the way back, which Barry eagerly accepted. They swung their arms back and forth while they walked before Hal stopped them in front of a flower stand on the side of the street. 

“I have an idea, wait here,” he blurted out before running over to the nice lady at the flower stand and getting a small bouquet. He held it out to Barry before explaining, “we gotta make everyone jealous. I don’t see Reed getting flowers for Sue or anything.” They both laughed a little bit as Hal pulled out his phone to take a picture of the two of them with the flowers in the middle. He posted it on instagram and put his phone back in his pocket and continuing their walk back to Barry’s apartment. 

When he got back to his apartment half an hour later, his post had gotten a few comments from their friends. 

_ MonsieurLeBeau: mon dieu, took long enough _

_ MJCBooster: @TedSKord WE DID IT IT FINALLY HAPPENED I WON THE BET _

_ SKyleWayne: wonderful, boys, I’ll have to set something up with Bruce so we can have dinner together some time _

Hal grinned at his phone and texted Barry and Selina to follow up on the offer, dinner with the Waynes was not something anyone said no to. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hoping that Boostle will be my next one but who knows, I kinda got hype about my Selina/Bruce storyline I set up in my drafts and also might do the Kory/Wally/Dick one I have drafted too. Shout out to the person that left the comment they they were hype for the HalBarry section yesterday because it perfectly lined up in a break with my costume prep for a con and my break from marathoning various tv shows over the past few weeks.


End file.
